Left behind
by liliaeth
Summary: Sequel to Unreality


Title: Left behind  
Author:Lore  
Rating: PG13 (so far)  
Summary: sequel to Unreality  
Crossover/Fandom: Buffy/Forever Knight/Star Trek: Voyager  
Characters: Xander, Spike  
Disclaimer: don't know, don't sue

I've known faces that have faded in the mists of time, and others that dance between my eyelids as I hide from the day. Like the shimmering flames of halflit candles. There's nothing out here for miles around. The locals know better than to risk their lives intruding these ruins. Others ... they won't live to tell the experience.

No, there's nothing out here, nothing but the ghosts of my past chanting at me through the deserted streets in a city occupated by faded memories of the ghosts that used to live and laugh in these oft haunted streets.

I've considered taking the locator offline, but I'm too hungry to deny the crunching need eating at my soul, tearing my guts apart.

I try to stop it, to be more than an animal, but it's hard, so unimaginably hard. It makes me hide in the shadows as I trail my prey, waiting for them to be alone, even if only for a second. I can see them twitching, their fear a stench I can smell from miles. And as I dive down on them, I wonder for a second how they see me, what it is they think as they face my eyes red with hunger. Is it a monser they see? It comes to me at times, as I feel their alien blood seep through my throat, caressing me with its warmth, not enough. Never enough. All it can do is keep me from dying and for the beast inside of me that's barely enough to keep me from draining them all.

I want to think of them as people.As persons in their own right, but my morals deserted me a long time ago, along with my clothes during the long years of my lonely exile. I've stopped pretending that their inhuman look makes it easier. I no longer think of them as demons. Because I know they're not. And what I do ... it's murder, plain and simple.

But I'm not sane enough to ask for help and too hungry to leave them alive.

So as I close my eyes I feel it all slipping away, my sanity first and foremost. And I remember a more innocent time. When I was young and hopeful, still thinking I could live instead of plainly survive. And I remember how we got all left behind, slipped between the cracks with me as the hidden monster amongst them. Even if I held off at first, it wasn't for very long, or for high moral reasons at that. I used the replicator, not for their sake but my own. Not that that I'd have admitted that then.

They were my cattle. Like a masai sheperd, taking my cows along, keeping them safe, cause it's easier than to haul their meat along, dead. Then the replicator broke down and I thought, not a problem, I'll just take a sip, a single drop, they won't miss it ...

But it didn't stop at that, soon I held a young man in my arms as he lost his final breath to my chest. And I thought, what the hell, he's already death, it won't mean a thing and I bit in, draining him dry. Only, ... I'l never know if I could have saved him if I'd even given it a try instead of smelling that seductive scent coming from his veins.

And my hunger grew as it always did and I stood there in front of them, blood on my lips after I'd killed yet another, saying it didn't matter, he'd been sick, he was dying... Even as I made them forget I couldn't stop it... The rumors, the fears. Memories seeping through of a smashed pretense of humanity. All I had left to cling too were the shadows and a run to revel in the truth of my nature.

It didn't take them long to start cursing the shadows, praying to their gods for salvation. I kept them alive, fed, pretending it made up for their blood. But the veil had fallen and I knew then that it was a lie. I kept them around like walking talking bottles of blood that once uncorked let out it sweet aroma, calling me for the kill. I treated them well, well... hah if you ignore their terrified screams at night and their trembling in there shoddily constructed huts. And still they didn't know it was me.

I would drive them back as they attempted to run, shepparding them in, in their enclosed village, their pasture... They were my cows... my cattle.

But my hunger grew... and all too soon they were dead and their memories along with them. Maybe I should have been more patient, let them relax, have children... think long term and all that shit. But I was too hungry then, I still am.

So there I was, alone ... with nothing but the locals to hunt.  
And I learned their language through their screams, their pleading for mercy.  
I listened as they warned their children of the night. I made them scared. I made them terrified.

It was me that hunted them, breaking their lives, their culture, every rule I was supposed to uphold. I just no longer cared.

I can still hear the screams of the parents as they found their childrens bodies lying still in their beds. I could feel the strings of arrows coming after me, smell the stench of their torches. The monster was real and it was me.

I no longer have a name. I used to... but that was a long time ago. I'm just the vampire now, the monster.  
The Laichente as the locals call me, the Nightbeast.  
And I'm hungry, always so hungry. 

My thirst for blood knows no reason, for I already know that it can't fed me what I need.  
So I don't turn of the beacon, hoping for a surprise snack, a decent meal that never comes.

To be continued


End file.
